Pataki Weighs Endorsing Rudy

Ex-guv says he’s over the Mario messiness.

Will George Pataki finally get his revenge? When Pataki first ran for governor, in 1994, his fellow Republican Rudy Giuliani crossed party lines to endorse Mario Cuomo’s reelection. “It hurt terribly,” Pataki says now. With Giuliani’s poll numbers slipping as the primaries finally get under way, America’s Mayor needs all the help he can get in his 9/11-based campaign—and so he could use the endorsement of his 9/11 partner, Pataki, who says he’ll soon pick a candidate and start campaigning. Since leaving Albany, the former governor has devoted himself to green causes like renewable energy and decreased dependence on oil purchased from, as he puts it, “dictators like the Hugo Chávezes of the world.” Giuliani’s Texas-based law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, is active in the oil world and has done lobbying work for Venezuela’s Chávez-controlled state oil company. Pataki says Giuliani’s business ties won’t prevent an endorsement; you have to look at “the totality” of the candidate, he says. He also says he won’t hold the past against Giuliani. “You can’t waste your time in politics looking over your shoulder,” Pataki says. Plus, he says Giuliani apologized. “He told me, ‘I made a mistake.’ ”